Manafonistas

Once more on the recording/live topic. Here’s something by guitarist Aram Bajakian (he worked with Lou Reed and John Zorn) on SHADOW KINGDOM

 

Been listening to Shadow Kingdom all day. Streamed the video during covid lockdown and it was perplexing, like when I realized the musicians were not really playing, old school TV-broadcast style: musical instrument lip syncing. But the singing stuck with me. I wondered how he managed to lip sync so perfectly with the vocal track, due to the ever changing phrasing of his songs. Did he maybe record the vocals during the video session? But how’d they prevent bleed, given how dry and isolated the vocals are and his lack of headphones? Technicalities aside, the music stayed with me, and I loved that there was no way to listen to it after those few days of streaming. What I love about the record that was released yesterday is how simple it is, especially given how so much music is over produced today. Sounds like a bunch of great musicians in a room playing the songs with simple arrangements and playing them masterfully, like a band that’s been on the road on tour for a few years. I feel like I walked into a random bar in the middle of nowhere, and there’s a house band playing, but they’re the best band in the world, playing songs that people will be singing a few centuries from now. The singer may not belt it out like they used to, but you know they’ve seen some things and that you can learn something by listening to them tell their story, all conveyed with their voice. Give it a good listen.

 

 

und ein Video zum Wachwerden und Augenohrenreiben. Zu einem neuen Album von drummer Kate Gentile.

 

V  I  D  E  O

 

Michael Blake fokussiert in dem folgenden Gespräch mit Morgan Enos scharf Aspekte des Aufnehmens und Mixens von Musik:
 

I did this record [on co-founded label P&M Records] with my brother [Paul], and he and I have shared similar musical tastes for years. And also, argued and completely disagreed about music at times. But we were listening to a bunch of records – some by my friends, some just other things he was interested in – and there was this one album he chose. It doesn’t matter what it is, but it had this very generic jazz production. The way the drums were recorded – it was just flat. He was like, “I don’t like this; turn this off!” I was like, “OK, settle down. It’s not bad; you’re just responding to the presentation – the aural experience.”

 

I think in the case of jazz, technology has evolved: there are certain ways people record now, and they get really good, clean records. But how do you explain the rawness of a Mingus recording? That’s also recorded beautifully. It’s not just the mic placement or anything. There’s something else happening that’s fearless. Ellington stuff – a lot of that as well. In the music that I like, anyway, there’s a certain mystery. Music itself is more powerful than the technology documenting it. The music, as an aggregate, is so good and so strong and so powerful that no matter how you capture it, it’s going to be what it is.

 

LJN: How would you connect that to „Dance of the Mystic Bliss“?

 

MB: The mixes are done by Scott Harding, a.k.a. Scotty Hard, who just produced this new Sexmob record [2023’s The Hard Way] that’s completely his thing. It’s like they went into the studio and [trumpeter and bandleader Steven] Bernstein was like, “Just do whatever you want with this.” They call it The Hard Way because it really is his interpretation. When he did my album, Champa, in ‘95, he had been working with Teo Macero. When Teo did my record, he asked for Scott, which is funny, because Scott and I were college buddies in Canada. He came to New York after me and became this hip-hop engineer, doing Wu-Tang Clan and Prince Paul’s stuff.

 

So, when I asked him to do my record, I was like, I hope he knows how to record jazz instruments, because we hadn’t really worked together since we were in Vancouver. And oh my god, he got great sounds, but when he started mixing it, he created this whole other aural experience. Sort of a three-dimensional concept.

 

LJN: From a mixing standpoint, this album sounds different from other stuff I hear.

 

MB: Scotty Hard has a sound, and that’s part of the sound of this, too. It’s produced by Scott in the sense that the mixes are the final say. I produced it in the sense that I arranged it and organised it and made all the musical decisions.

 

On the intro of this tune, “Sagra,” you hear a lot of reverb. But when we all play this last phrase together, he takes the violin and the sax and the guitar and creates one blend. And then you can hear that he’s tweaking it, so when it fades, that’s an engineering fade; it’s not natural, musicians all ending at slightly different times, where someone drops the pitch a bit.

 

veröffentlicht auf LONDON JAZZ NEWS

Gefunden und gelesen: The Necks at Opera House Sidney. Das Geschehen, das beschrieben wird, ist ein live-Geschehen kollektiven räumlichen Erlebens, sag ich, der eine ganze Menge Konzerte des Trios live erlebt hat …

und sich noch nie eine Konserve ihrer Musik angehört hat. Es würde keinen Riesenschaden anrichten, aber ich halte mich lieber an die Erinnerungen sich intensiv und erstaunlich entfaltenden live Geschehens. Wenn das vorbei ist, befindet man sich weiter physisch, mental und spirituell in ‚demselben‘ Raum mit anderen und den Musikern.

 

 

 

 

The Necks

MUSIC SMH. The Necks ★★★★½

Drama Theatre, until May 31

Yes, the Necks can still surprise us 36 years on. The band’s original conception of slowly evolving long-form improvisations is so nimble that it appeals to an infinitely wider audience than people would expect.

Having played all six venues at the Opera House, here the Necks are back in the drama theatre, the letterbox-shaped proscenium-arch stage that is such a challenge for theatrical productions being no impediment to presenting music. Perversely, in fact, it’s one of Sydney’s best concert venues, but is virtually never used for that purpose. The phenomenal artistry of Tony Buck (drums), Chris Abrahams (piano) and Lloyd Swanton (bass) was complemented by the warmth and clarity of the sound and the unwaveringly sympathetic lighting, the latter beginning with an effect like lightly falling rain.

As usual, the trio played two improvisations, each going for about an hour. The first began with a haze of impressionistic piano and melodic drumming, before the bass added tension to the prevailing beauty. By then the spell was cast. That’s an aspect of this band that can’t be copied: each player can be ostensibly contributing relatively little, yet collectively they keep 500 people bewitched, hanging off each note – if you lose concentration you could miss the moment when the pattern changes. It’s like staring at the night sky, waiting for a shooting star.

Buck, Abrahams and Swanton know when to move themselves in and out of the foreground, so no instrument is ever dominant or secondary for long. They also arrive at denouements as naturally and inevitably as a train arriving at its destination.

The second piece began with Buck using a thumb piano to create the aural equivalent of sunlight. Swanton slotted into this, whereas Abrahams chose a parallel rather than an intersecting trajectory, playing snaky lines juxtaposed against the implied African groove. The band has always been able to endlessly unlock new places to go. Sometimes you can hear them reaching for ideas; more often these flow like water from a tap. Exceptional.

Reviewed by John Shand

 

The Necks’ improvisational style is effortlessly captivating.

Photo: JORDAN MUNNS

 

Yesterday the first open-air live event (the wind was a bit to cold still): a pre-opening gathering of Rotterdam’s NORTH SEA ROUND TOWN city community festival with its 350 musical events at 125 locations …

 
 

 
 

Stro/ing free form Body Voice (Fl)Air(y) Sweeps – forte effusione frappant

 
 

 
 

Sanem Kalfa, (voc, cello), Lucija Gregov (cellos), Alice de Maio and Kelly Bigirindavyi (dance) presented the very personal exploration of their 3-days residency at Wibbine Kien’s Driebergen Farm on the rural outskirts of Rotterdam – A closeness experience of open throws and hitting arrows.

 
 

 
 

Here only a few pictures of many sequences of gripping movements of bodies, voices, strings, eyes and souls in high directness.

 
 

 
 
 

Apropos closeness … an album with duets of Charlie Haden comes to mind, released 1976. It’s duos with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, Alice Coltrane and Paul Motian, an early (unforgettable) school of listening. Simply a cross-sectional association.

 
 
AUDIO  Closeness Duets

 

Records sind Verfestigungen von Ketten von live Momenten und musikalischen Recherchen. Ohne Records gäbe es eine Menge von Stileingrenzungen gar nicht. Auch gäbe es eifriges klassifizierendes Tun viel weniger oder vielleicht gar nicht. Nun gut, es ist so wie es ist. Wir leben in dieser verfestigten und verfestigenden Welt mit all ihren Vor- und Nachteilen. Es ist mitunter auch verblüffend, was Gruppen, die auf markanten Labeln festgelegt wurden, tatsächlich live machen. Und natürlich tun viele Musiker alles, um nicht in den Verfestigungen von Records gefangen zu sein. Es drängt viele zum Aufbrechen der Verfestigungen, die eine (produktive) dialektische Dynamik verursacht.

 

 

 

 

This is part 2 of the story of vocalist/cellist Sanem Kalfa. Part 1 you can read HERE

 

Sound-making: the real voice 

 

“I always ask myself: is this the real Sanem speaking? There is so much music, there are so many thoughts, people, places and events happening around us. I think it’s important where you position yourself, where you stand in order to act in truest ‘being yourself’ mode while all these other things are happening around you. This way, it’s a question of a powerful balance between giving and receiving. Anything effortless and honest reaches me easily.”

 

To the comment that the voice is the foghorn of the soul, she replies:

 

“I believe that the voice is one of the channels of the soul through our body. Perhaps the most concrete one. You can call it the foghorn or anything else that speaks to your imagination.”

 

This opens up a fascinating conversation about different types of soul and about discovering your own kind of soul through shared musical travels and about her Dream Project entitled “Invisible Columns”. Music can lead to moments of intense contact with our own souls as well as with other souls’ vibrations and flames.

 

This means that while the inner light of our souls is burning, it is often obscured by a lot of internal and external noise and confusion (fog), such that we may even lose our way by losing the ability to feel or by avoiding certain internal areas. We can sigh or cry, cry or scream. We can yell or roar. But we are supported when we sing together. And we need our voice for laughing, too. 

 

The physical voice and its qualities can lead us into and around in that fog. It can warn us of danger or pain. It can seduce us into following, immersing ourselves and even surrendering. It can soothe and open us up to mourning and acceptance. It can incite us to cross the threshold for doing cruel things. It is a central human organ and instrument when it comes to leading people.

 

“Indeed,” interjects Kalfa, “and it must be used wisely.”.

It can also allow us to experience the abyss, as well as dark, threatening shadows. It can conjure and heal. If we didn’t have this medium stimulating us to connect the internal to the external, we would be alone in a hell of inner noise or in a dead cave with muffled heartbeats discernible only at a distance.  

 

 

 

 

Voice (“ses” in Turkish) and sound-making (“ses cikarmak” in Turkish) are an integral part of the movement of our bodies. As Kalfa says:

 

“I imagine it like this: emotions trigger the body, and the body reacts by producing sound.”

 

According to her, LISTENING in a broader sense is key for the emergence and shaping of music. Kalfa:

 

“Music comes from the depth of the ground to the limits of the sky – everything, everywhere. When we start filtering, then it becomes music.”

 

It means that children receive a multitude of sounds which have different effects on them and they are specifically attracted to human voices and their musical qualities when talking, humming and singing (as when Kalfa’s older sister sings Turkish lullabies for her as a primary voice). This plays a guiding role in the absorption of surrounding sounds. On the journey from sounds to music, the travelling continues from music back to sounds to create and enrich music. According to Kalfa, immersive listening with the whole body is also the basis for getting into the flow during performances. And then there are these moments of rising excitement when listening to music when performing yourself – but also when listening to and watching a performance. 

 

There is the expression “music is in the air”, but neither air nor wind play music. It is we ourselves who hear it as music and can then build a wind harp, for example, to channel and shape this natural process. There is also the concept of musica universalis/music of the spheres (Johannes Kepler, 1571-1630) which perceives the movements and constellations of the universe in musical terms. A similar concept can be found in the biophonic work of electronic musician and biologist Bernie Krause (The Great Animal Orchestra (2012)). Remarkably, the latest theory of the universe, String Theory, is also based on vibrations. Kalfa feels very much connected to the idea that musicians are mediums who make it possible to hear music which, as she said “comes from the depth of the ground to the limits of the sky”. A medium is required to maintain a context-sensitive balance of noticing/receiving sounds and then shaping them in open, attractive ways. 

 

The continuing creation process

 

Two examples of Kalfa’s continuing work of creation are Televisyon and a new, extended version of Miraculous Layers with a new line-up.

 

Televisyon is a new group formed by Kalfa around the core of the longstanding duo of Kalfa and pianist extraordinaire Marta Warelis by teaming up with Norwegian bedrock, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and Amsterdam drummer Nasim López-Palacios Navarro, originally from the Canary Islands. The group comes up with music which is alive and kicking for the love of life inspired and informed by the shimmer of the tv and its backdrop of jumbled sound to extract dramatic television stories from it. The music is drawn from memories of times at home when the TV was on all day and all night, effectively becoming fluent wallpaper. You can stop watching, but you can’t escape its backdrop of jumbled sound which will insinuate itself into your memory. In this case, however, it’s not at all nightmarish, more of a joyful celebration involving jams which possibly evoke associations with hints of Blondie or even the Mothers of Invention. It was commissioned as an SITP production in Amsterdam. 

 

 

 

 

The group Miraculous Layers will enter new, free waters with its line-up including saxophonist Tineke Postma. The group started working on extending its repertoire with a live performance-based strategy, developing music from the inherent musical features of the spoken word, a gradual process of crystallization (à la Steve Lacy) resulting in something between composition and improvisation. Kalfa’s cello-playing will take a bigger role, leading into a new counterpoint and coalescence of saxophone and cello. 

 

 

 

 

 

It is evident that Kalfa has a preference for duo work which will be further manifested in promising, thrilling combinations with guitarist Teis Semey, pianist Marta Warelis, pianist Harmen Fraanje and percussionist Sofia Borges (Whispers&Cries). 

 

It will make room for Kalfa’s versatility, for the deepening her music and in future, for her free wingbeats which will eventually lead to as yet unknown multidisciplinary projects. 

Das MAGNET FESTIVAL brachte mich vor einer Woche zum dritten Mal nach Wiesbaden. Das erste Mal liegt weit weit zurück und geschah im Jahre 1969. Damals wurden musikalisch Grundsteine gelegt, Grundsteine im Musik machen und Musik erleben wie sich darüber austauschen. Mit ein paar alten Schulfreunden aus Südniedersachen machte ich mich auf den Weg nach Wiesbaden, um Tim Belbe zu besuchen. Ich hatte gerade mit meinem Studium in Göttingen angefangen.

 

Spuren der Vergangenheit

 

Tim Belbe? Saxophonist Tim Belbe (1944-2004), der Himmel habe ihn selig, war der Frontmann, die Rampensau der Krautband XHOL CARAVAN. Ich sage Krautband, weil es eigentlich keine Rockband war. Hervorgegangen aus der Band Soul Caravan, die amerikanische Soul Music spielte (u.a. als  Opener von und mit amerikanischen SouLmusikern wie Aretha Franklin, King Curtis & The Kingpins und Carla Thomas) ging Xhol Caravan damals in die Richtung von langen improvisierten tripping Jams. Eine Band aus Deutschland, die Soul Music spielte und dann überging zu tripping Jams, das war nun wahrhaftig total neu.

 

Keine Ahnung, wie wir nach Wiesbaden kamen (trampen?) und wie dann zu Belbe. Wahrscheinlich waren einige der Freunde im Jahr zuvor bei den berühmten Essener Song-Tagen gewesen, wo sich neben Zappas Mothers die neuen Krautgruppen wie Guru Guru Groove, Amon Düül, Embryo, Tangerine Dream und eben Xhol Caravan tummelten. Ich durfte da nicht hin, aber mit dem Beginn meines Studiums war der Weg frei für entsprechende abenteuerliche Unternehmungen. Wir landeten im Stadtteil Erbenheim, wo die Gruppe als Kommune zusammenlebte, eine Lebensform, mit der man sich damals radikal gegen alles Hergebrachte abzusetzen begann. Von Wiesbaden habe ich wenig gesehen. Jedenfalls hab ich keine lebendige Erinnerung daran. Wir tauchten in die ‚fremde‘ Welt der Kommune ein und versuchten uns zurechtzufinden. Belbe und die Seinen waren so stoned, dass uns als durchaus erfahrenen kleinstädtischen Gebrauchen aus der niedersächsischen Provinz  die Sinne schlackerten. Inmitten der Haschischschwaden machte Belbe uns Jüngeren klar, worum’s ging in der Musik und im Leben. Erfahrung direkt vor Ort an der Quelle also. Die Gruppe hatte nach ihrem Soul Caravan Album gerade Electrip, das erste Xhol Caravan Album (mit dem Hermaphroditen-Cover) rausgebracht. Es gilt als erstes Krautrock Album.

 

 

Die Musik war, wie der Titel schon indiziert, stark elektrifiziert. Es wurde nicht nur mit Wawa und anderen Effekten gearbeitet. Auch die Saxophone waren elektrifiziert. Es war also alles, was heute bei einem neuen Festival wie dem Magnet Festival eine Rolle spielt, damals bereits in nuce vorhanden. Due Gruppe machte eine wechselvolle Entwicklung durch, tritt aber Genaus so wie Guru Guru und Embryo immer noch auf. Nachzulesen ist das im sehr informativen Gespräch mit zwei Bandmitgliedern, dem Saxophonisten Hans Jürgen Fischer und dem Bassisten Klaus Driest.

 

Hier AUDIO von ELECTRIP 

 

Das Folgealbum Hau-Ruk wurde dann bezeichnenderweise im Göttinger CENTER aufgenommen, ein Spielort, den ich noch sehr lebendig und konkret vor Augen habe. Das CENTER war neben dem Jungen Theater, the place to be. Dort spielte von Guru Guru Groove bis Brötzmann alles, was damals relevant war, a really tripping place.

 

Und damit wär ich auch schon bei musikalischen Zentrum der damaligen freien Szene dort, der GALAXY DREAM BAND von Gunter Hampel (1937), einem Urgestein der deutschen und internationalen Freejazz- Welt, deren Mitglieder sich in meiner direkten Nachbarschaft, in der Philipp-Reis-StraBe, betriebsam tummelten. Dazu zählten Hampels Lebensgefährtin, die Vokalistin Jeanne Lee, der Klarinettist RobinsoPerry Robinson, der Drummer Steve McCall, der Violist/Bratschist Tom Marcus. Dazu gesellten sich Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown und Willem Breuker. Hampel arbeitete zu der Zeit sowohl in Göttingen als auch in New York und in Amsterdam, kehrte aber immer wieder in die Philipp-Reis-StraBe zurück. Ich hab die Gruppe in verschiedensten Besetzungen damals zahlreiche Male live erleben können.

 

 

In Erinnerung geblieben ist mir besonders eine magistrale live Vorstellung von Waltz For 11 Universes in a Corridor (klingt noch immer im Kopf). Die Platte hat mich in viele Jahren begleitet und will immer mal wieder gehört werden. Die Platte ist allerdings ‚kleiner‘, gespielt von einem Trio aus Gunter Hampel, Jeanne Lee und Tom Marcus. Dazu muss man allerdings wissen, dass Hampel ein Multiinstrumentalist ist und Bassklarinette, Vibraphon, Querflöte und Piano spielt. Es gibt eine vielstimmige Version der Galaxy Dream Band aus dem Jahre 1972 beim NDR Jazzworkshop

 

VIDEO GALAXY DREAM BAND concert

 

Anfang der 80er Jahre spielte Hampel in New York mit Musikern wie u.a. Curtis Fowlkes, Bob Stewart, Bill Friesel, und Barre Phillips und natürlich mit deutschen Cracks wie Albert Mangelsdorff und Manfred Schoof.

So bin ich unversehens von Wiesbaden zurück nach Göttingen gelangt. Dazu gibt es noch eine Reihe von Geschichten, die später noch erzählt werden können.

 

 

 

 

Was die Vokalistin und Cellistin Sanem Kalfa betrifft, finden sich auf Manafonistas bereits einige Spuren. Es sind Spuren, die einer längeren Zusammenarbeit entstammen: Zusammenarbeit mit einer kühnen und farbenreichen Künstlerin und Persönlichkeit, die von Mal zu Mal voller Überraschungen steckt, eine Zusammenarbeit mit einer expressiven Persönlichkeit, in der Leichtigkeit des Seins mit dessen Schwere und den dunklen Seiten der Seele eine erstaunlich bewegliche Liaison bilden. Dazu gesellt sich eine intellektuelle Brillianz, die ebenso unsensationell wie beharrlich um die Ecke schaut. 

 

Sanem hat, wie ihre Solovorstellungen zeigen, den Mut zum elementar Einfachen, aus dem Nähe zu zwischenpersönlichen Vibrationen entsteht und befreiende wie erheiternde Höhenflüge entspringen – alles transportiert und entfacht durch eine unglaublich wendige Stimme. 

 

In Rotterdam wird sie im Juni beim Festival North Sea Round Town diese Se/aiten als Artist in Focus in vielfältiger Zusammenarbeit zum Tragen bringen. Zentral dabei steht eine Zusammenarbeit mit Jan Bang, Kit Downs und Ambrose Akinmusire im aussergewöhnlichen Raum der alten Van Nelle Fabrik, die ein Echo von 12 Sekunden hat. Ja genau, die ehemalige Kaffee-, Tee- und Tabakfabrik (der bekannte schwere Shag alter Zeiten als Rauchen noch gang und gäbe war).  Zwischen 1925 und 1931 gebaut, gehört diese Anlage zu den herausragenden Ikonen der Industriearchitektur. Zu dem Anlass kommt hier auf Manafonistas ein Zweiteiler zu Sanem Kalfa. 

 

 

 

Daten:

 

18.Mai  Sanem Kalfa’s MIRACULOUS LAYERS – The Space, Amsterdam

25. Mai  Sanem Kalfa (voc, cello)/ Lucija Gregov (cello, synth, field recordings)/ Alice de Maio, Kelly Bigirindayyi (dance) – Driebergen Farm

21. Juni   Sanem Kalfa’s MIRACULOUS LAYERS – Tineke Postma (sax), Marta Warelis (p), Sun-Mi Hong (dr) –  BIMhuis Amsterdam

23. Juni  Sanem Kalfa’s INVISIBLE COLUMNS Sanem Kalfa (voc/cello)/ Jan Bang (sampling) / Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet)/ Kit Downs (keys)/ Alice de Maio (dance) – Van Nelle Fabriek, Rotterdam

24. Juni  Teis Semey’s MIDNIGHT MESS Teis Semey (g) / Kit Downs (organ), Sanem Kalfa, Marta Arpini, Fuensanta Mendez, Liva Dumpe (voc) – Oude Kerk Charlois, Rotterdam

25. Juni  Duo Sanem Kalfa / Tineke Postma (sax) – Driebergen Farm, Rotterdam

27. Juni  Duo Sanem Kalfa / Hajo Boerema (church organ) – Laurens Church, Rotterdam

28. Juni  Sanem Kalfa’s TELEVIZYON w/Marta Warelis (p) / Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (b) / Nasim López-Palacios Navarro (perc) – Worm, Rotterdam

29.Juni  Sanem Kalfa feat. North Sea String Quartet (George Dumitriu, Yanna Pelser,  Pablo Rodriguez,  Thomas van Geelen) – Batavierhuis, Rotterdam

30. juni  Duo Sanem Kalfa / Peter Somuah (tr) – De Machinist, Rotterdam  (Peter Somuah is a premièring ACT musician)

2.Juli  Duo Sanem Kalfa / George Dumitriu (g, violin)  Jazz Bike Tour, Rotterdam

 

 

P.S.: HIER ist ein Portrait auf Französisch zu lesen, das als Titelstory auf der Plattform CITIZEN JAZZ erschienen ist. CITIZEN JAZZ ist sehr breit europäisch orientiert und es lohnt sich, dort zu stöbern oder zu recherchieren.

 

 

 

 

 

I experienced and learned a lot about the gifted musical spirit, human being and almost endlessly surprising personality of Sanem Kalfa, who comes from Trabzon on the southern Black Sea coast, from attending concerts, from extended conversations and from performing with her. Kalfa has now been living and working in Amsterdam for 12 years after studying music in Ankara and Groningen.

 

En route

After opening the (post-Covid) series of REFLEX commissions at Amsterdam’s BIMhuis in March 2022, this June, Sanem Kalfa will be the Artist in Focus at North Sea Round Town (NSRT). NSRT is a two-week city festival in Rotterdam (June 22-July 9) and precedes the huge three-day commercial North Sea Jazz Festival held indoors. A community-based festival, NSRT extends throughout the city of Rotterdam, including farmhouses on the green outskirts. The Rotterdam part of InJazz, the Dutch showcase festival (June 22-23), is integrated into NSRT. InJazz itself opens at Amsterdam’s BIMhuis on June 21.

 

 

 
 
 

During her North Sea Round Town residency, Sanem Kalfa will give a fairly large number of concerts and run site-specific projects in collaboration with dancers and musicians. In her Invisible Columns Dream Project, she will work and perform with the likes of trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, electronics wizard Jan Bang and master of organ and keyboard Kit Downs. She will furthermore appear with exquisite pianist Marta Warelis and stormy bass force Ingebrigt Håker Flaten in her new group Televisyon and form duos with violinist/guitarist George Dumitriu and rising trumpet star Peter Somuah to name but a few. Rotterdam musician Somuah, of Ghanaian origin, is a premiering ACT musician, whilst the duo with George Dumitriu is her longest collaboration to date and she and Dumitriu will be introducing new work in Rotterdam. At InJazz she will be playing with her all-female group Miraculous Layers made up of saxophonist Tineke Postma, pianist Marta Warelis and drummer Sun-Mi Hong (June 21, BIMhuis).

 
 
 

 
 
 

Phenomenon

Musician Sanem Kalfa (voice, violoncello) is a phenomenon; strong and colourful, yet as vulnerable as a free bird. Performing in a continuous, unstoppable flow, at once close by and far away, she juggles different internal and external forces and sources: what’s in the now, what she is inclined to bargain with, how she intends and is able to impinge on the air and on the vibration of surrounding souls, how she realises herself by giving colour, motion and sensation to lasting moments.

 
 
 

 
 
 

If you were to put these elements into an artificial intelligence program, you would need quite high-powered computation of complex interactions. It would then be hard to restrict the generative power of that AI. You would not only have to specify the different vectors and their strength; you would also have to specify the range of freedom and the intuitive decisions leading to moment-to-moment cohesion and coherence. In this case, the issue with AI is its computational model. This cannot easily model the flow characteristics of the original by means of high-density, rapid computation. The system would require numerous fine-tuning steps and an enormous capacity for learning. It would be a long, long road to achieve the creative forces of the original, especially its flow characteristics.

 

Kalfa’s vocal range, flexibility and inventiveness is astonishing and, after winning the Vocal Competition at the Montreux Festival (under the auspices of Quincy Jones) in 2010, she could have taken a conventional career path. However, she moved to Amsterdam to develop, blossom and find her way up from the grass roots of a lively scene by interacting with other art disciplines. A recent example of interdisciplinary work is her collaboration with choreographer Alexis Blake in Blake’s performance piece entitled “rock to jolt [] stagger to ash”. There are further examples of collaboration with dancers which will also play a role in her NSRT residency.

 

For her REFLEX commission at BIMhuis, she collaborated with fine artist Ilgen Arzik to design and create not just a conventional static stage set, but also a moving scenario, with the musicians as both sound-makers and visual vectors. For the mobile 10-piece vocal ensemble August 38th, she did the same herself with the design for the musicians’ configurational stage clothing. The huge location for her Rotterdam Dream Project, the Van Nelle Factory, will also give her the incentive to design it specifically as a scenic performance space. In short, she is one of those musicians who thinks and behaves multidimensionally – like Julien Desprez, Pedro Melo Alves, George Dumitriu or Sun-Mi Hong, for example.

 
 
 

 
 
 

As you can see, there are many more sides to Kalfa as musician/artist than the purely conventional role of singer; nor can she be pigeon-holed as a ‘voice artist’. The faculties and qualities of her voice are activated in order to express internal emotion.

 

Sound-making: sources, secrets
Kalfa works in manifold ways, with her whole body radiating to bind completely both internal and external aspects of expressing oneself, including facial expressions and gestures. She slips into the skin of a song or makes her own skin part of the song’s vibrations and movements.

 
 
 

 
 
 

As an artist, she is interested in the secrets and wonders of the human mind and the soul – its gorgeous as well as its painful aspects. Her work with her singing voice, her work of composing and performing music, both alone and with others, is a means of exploring, discovering, articulating and giving expression to this and of celebrating those realms and spheres. As a listener, you are at permanent risk of being confronted with all the terrifying and extraordinarily beautiful qualities of sounds outside the conventionally-shaped, socially-channelled ones. For Kalfa, singing a song is not simply a matter of repeating a received form which has been handed down, but of finding out about its layers by making room for vocalizing and articulating the inner and outer voice(s), confronting the self and mediating it by means of the collective mind and the conventional. This might sound ‘heavy’, but it’s never a clinical study, always a playful, lusty, joyous game using a faculty we are endowed with by Nature. It also means diving into sources our body has received and recorded from our earliest states of being up to recent sensations and confusion including echoes from an even remoter past.

 

Asked about her preferred method of sound-making, Kalfa said:

 

“I’m quite fascinated by the ‘discovery’ part of sound-making. Because there are countless possibilities for making sound using our bodies.”. She follows this up by emphasizing: “I try to be as effortless as possible and to enjoy the ensuing creation as it comes.”

 

This short sentence contains her artistic credo as manifested in her artistic practice. It means that she relies on what is deeply absorbed, intuitively accessible and can be applied organically. The sentence also contains the related belief that this should happen on a moment-to-moment basis, relying completely on those deeper sources. The emerging flow is a strong musical force but can also be disrupted by external or internal interference (such as a shift to a more conscious mode of anticipation and planning).

 
 
 

 
 
 

As part of the process, Kalfa is a highly context-sensitive voice with a powerful ability to flip and to integrate unforeseen situational elements. The fact that Kalfa is a vocalistic, theatrical being with rich abilities, bold and natural, and keeps herself open, makes her a performer who surprises and astonishes time and again. At the same time, it is hard to predict and describe in detail what she will do in a subsequent performance. For example, it would be an inherent contradiction to describe in detail what is going to happen in the Invisible Columns project: describing it in concrete terms, in detail, would have a pre-structuring effect and as a consequence, would reduce or erase the confrontational experience of detecting and becoming aware of the invisible.

 

To take a small example of this unpredictability from Sanem Kalfa’s concrete performance practice: in an improvised duo performance with pianist Harmen Fraanje, in which she was using electronics, the electronics failed just after the musicians started. This made the need to improvise much more real. After a few moments of trying to fix it, she abandoned the tool and relied solely on her natural vocal abilities and qualities. It was surprising for the audience, yet natural for her to deal with it in an improvisation situation. Things like this can happen at any time in real life, and she knows very well that it’s part of the game. Another example was at a concert in Germany when she ‘integrated’ the sounds penetrating from a nearby skating hall. At the same concert, she read poetic words from a notebook. At the end of the reading, she let the notebook fall to the ground in perfect time with the continuing music. This context-sensitivity is a fixed feature of her performance style.

 
 
 
to be continued tomorrow
 
all photos ©️FoBo_